


Flowers

by terajk



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Jigoku Shoujo | Hell Girl
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-17
Updated: 2011-08-17
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terajk/pseuds/terajk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ai visits a mortal for the first time. She wasn't asked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flowers

As she floats, she closes her eyes and wonders if she'll see the moon when she opens them again. Even in her brief time among the spirits, even here, she's heard the rumors.

But there is only the sunset, perpetual fire all around. Perhaps it's supposed to bother her.

"Grandmother," she says, "please ready my nagajuban."

"Have you even been summoned?" Grandmother asks.

She looks at the spider, watching from its string. "No."

  


* * *

  


If Azula looks at them directly, sometimes they disappear; sometimes they do so only when she looks away. She doesn’t take her eyes off the book she’s reading. "You're new," she says, turning a page.

“Yes.”

Her hallucinations are usually of familiar people--Uncle, Mother, Zuko and his whores. She prefers this one. The eyes are the color of

 _(Zuko’s robes in the gallery portrait)_

any number of tapestries in the palace, but it’s by the kimono that Azula knows what the thing is. No real person would wear something with those flowers, so garish they seem to move on their own. “Who are you?”

“My name,” it says, “is Ai.”

Azula feels herself stiffen. She points to the corner of the page, keeps her voice even. “Write it for me.”

The thing just blinks in a way that would be vapid if it had any expression at all.

“It’s only my brother’s book,” Azula says. "I'd do worse myself, if I felt like it."

Something shifts in the thing’s eyes. Something like fear.

Azula is intrigued. “You know that bastard?”

“No,” it says, after a pause. Then it takes a pen out of its sleeve, sticks the nub in its finger, and does as it’s told.

Azula reads the character and thinks. It's the kind of writing she'd only seen in old census ledgers or records of Earth Kingdom prisoners, and she's never seen this character by itself. She'd wonder if this could be right, but madness is like dreaming while awake. It doesn't matter if it's right. “And who's your leader?”

The thing doesn’t reply. Instead, it starts to sing at the ceiling. The song has no tune, and Azula doesn’t hear any words, either. But thinking about that hideous outfit she catches something about dancing flowers (how clever of her mind) and then--

 _when the seven-year-old child sleeps_

Azula feels her mother watching, but she isn’t there. When she looks back at her book, neither is the little red-eyed shadow.

  


* * *

  


When she is in the water again, surrounded by the color of her vengeance, Grandmother says, “What an odd way to write your name." Then: “Be careful, Ai.”

“I will, Grandmother.”

"Perhaps you should find an assistant."

"Yes, Grandmother."

When she opens her eyes, for the briefest of moments, she sees the moon.


End file.
